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Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – and to see takes time,
like to have a friend takes time.
The immersion
within the world of the ordinary object leads ironically to new ways of
seeing ourselves. ...
Time is not a line,
The physical act of
making and our immersion in this activity is the initial doorway to the
productive ordering of consciousness known as 'flow'. It is through this
essential aspect that we can lose the sense of ourselves as separate and
unique beings and become one with the activity.
If we but give it time,
a work of art 'can rap and knock and enter our souls' and re-align us –
all our molecules – to make us whole again.
Hurry! I never hurry. |
slow art
the gentle practice of
becoming lost in flow
Nature does not hurry,
The camera, if it's lucky, may tell a different truth to
drawing – but not a truer one. Drawing brings us into a different, a
deeper and more fully experienced relation to the object. A good drawing
says: "not so fast, buster". We have had a gutful of fast art and fast
food. What we need more of is slow art: art that holds time as a
vase holds water: art that grows out of modes of perception and whose
skill and doggedness makes you think and feel; art that isn't merely
sensational, that doesn't get its message across in 10 seconds, that
isn't falsely iconic, that hooks onto something deep-running in our
natures. Robert Hughes The Guardian, June, 2004 ~
This page is a celebration of
Amanda Robins' Doctoral
thesis
While Robins' approach is wholly academic and her
research is based around psychological theory, the results of her
inquiry into meditative process and practice within her own, and
others', work, show clearly that while the terms and concepts may vary,
the experience remains identical for each artisan. This site, thanks to
its writer's proclivities, bases its inquiry more around 'spiritual'
(non-dual) notions, but in the end it all boils down to the same thing:
losing oneself in the mysterious, immeasurable, movement of creation.
entering flow She then examines the work of a selection of historical and contemporary artists from the perspective of these practices - including her own. Her deep and insightful observations about her practice offer a refreshing antidote to a topic seldom commented on, or inquired into, by artists themselves, but rather by theorists and philosophers. It's a most welcome exegesis, one that I hope will be eventually published in book form. ~
It used to be that media-based, photo-derived art looked
almost automatically 'interesting'. It cut to the chase instantly, it
mimicked the media-glutted state of general consciousness, it was
democratic—sort of. The high priest of this situation was of course the
hugely influential Andy Warhol, paragon of fast art. I am sure that
though his influence probably will last (if only because it renders
artmaking easier for the kiddies) his paragonhood won't, and despite the
millions now paid for his Lizzes and Elvises, he will shrink to relative
insignificance, a historical figure whose resonance is used up. There
will be a renewed interest—not for everyone, of course, but for those
who actually know and care about the issues—in slow art: art that takes
time to develop on the retina and in the mind, that sees instant
communication as the empty fraud it is, that relates strongly to its own
traditions.
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Without haste,
The demon of speed is often
associated with forgetting, with avoidance…and slowness with memory and
confronting.
Finally, I surfaced and wondered where the time had gone. Had the
painting painted itself or had I a hand in it?
The flow
experience constitutes a time outside of the ordinary sequence of daily
events where clock time loses its meaning and the constant stream of
internal dialogue is for the moment, stilled. |
